Your Thanksgiving Day Video Rewind: A Look At The Largest (Only?) Travel Watch Collector In The World, Gene Stone

Hodinkee

ADVERTISEMENT

Thursday November 22, 2012

Today is thanksgiving in the United States, which means many of you
will be in a complete tryiptophan-induced lethargy, so we're going to
make this easy for you. Sit back, relax, and watch our original video
on best-selling author Gene Stone and his incredibly collection of
travel watches. What is a travel watch? You're about to find out! You
can read our original feature on Gene's collection, published last spring, here.

Let me preface everything I'm about to say with this: I live in Manhattan and don't own a car; my daily driver is a CitiBike; my first car was a 1986 Ford Tempo (LX though!); and I spend way too much time in a Toyota Corolla or similar. I think you can tell where I'm going with this – there was basically no way I wasn't going to really, really enjoy driving (and photographing) the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta. This was a special weekend.

This week's Bring a Loupe will mix tool watches and elegant pieces, introducing you to some of the shining stars in each category. You will learn about one of the rarest military watches, the Tornek-Rayville, and discover the Cosmic from Omega as well as another triple date moonphase calendar from Universal Geneve. As usual, you should expect a fair number of beautiful chronographs, including the inonic Lange Datograph. And I will also mention some auction picks, from a very sexy Patek to a disturbingly fraudulent Omega. This is your Bring a Loupe for July 31, 2015.

The Mondaine Helvetica 1 Smart, first introduced last March, will now be released in a limited run of 1957 pieces to commemorate the birth of the Helvetica font. The Mondaine Helvetica Smart 1957will be available for pre-order starting July 29, 2015, only through Mondaine and the MoMA Store. Pre-ordering will end September 6, 2015, with permanent pieces entering the collection in the fall.

The Longines Heritage Diver Chronograph is a sturdy, boldly styled combo diver's watch and chronograph that takes inspiration from a great classic model. Is it just another me-too heritage model, or a real blast from the past? Find out now on The Value Proposition.

If you’re anything like me, you mainly know Zenith for their El Primero Chronographs—and, most notably, for their El Primero Classic Chronograph that they released at Baselworld this year. What most people don’t know is that the 150-year-old manufacture released another batch of watches at Baselworld 2015; these pieces received less camera-time than others, but they’re all doing pretty interesting things—so it may be unfair that Zenith’s new Type 20 Pilot collection has been flying under the radar for this long.

There are several reasons that most people should never consider bidding on a watch that has the words “as is” or “for repair” in its description on eBay. In addition to making me have to overpay for adventurous restorations, pieces like this trade at such a small discount that it is rarely, if ever, a cost effective way to get your hands on a great vintage piece. There are exceptions, but for the most part, for collectors this is a losing gamble. This recent adventure very well illustrates this point and shows off awesome vintage Tudor in the process.

HODINKEE Executive Editor Benjamin Clymer and CEO Kevin Rose are delighted to announce that Mr. Frank Roda has joined the HODINKEE team as our new Director of Business Development. In his new role, Frank will oversee advertising and strategic partnerships.

This year at BaselWorld, Glashütte Original announced two new versions of the PanoMaticLunar, equipped with two new dial colors, and we just had our first chance to go hands on and close up with both watches. The two new versions are a steel PanoMaticLunar with a blue dial, and a rose gold model with a black dial.

Recently, HODINKEE reader Brandon Moore sent in a question: "I am wondering if the modern interpretations of the Breguet Natural Escapement (F.P. Journe Optimum, Kari Voutilainen Vingt-8, and Laurent Ferrier Automatic) have implemented specific solutions to the shortcomings of this design, namely the 'backlash' between the escape wheels, that Breguet experienced, and which caused him to ultimately abandon his design." This is a wonderful question, that deserves a careful response.

The Speedmaster Professional has, since its introduction in 1957, come in a truly bewildering variety of shapes, sizes, designations and limited editions, but one of the most polarizing models, when it appeared, was the X-33. The X-33 was introduced, in the first version, in 1998; it was the result of an Omega development program designed to (finally) produce a multifunction quartz watch that would be a completely modern successor to the mechanical Speedmaster Professional, and that would meet up to date NASA and ESA requirements for a flight-qualified timepiece. It was an ambitious project, which took place over the course of five years. Prototypes were flight-tested by both American and European astronauts; the first version of the X-33 would go on to be used by U.S., European, and Soviet astronauts on the Space Shuttle, the Mir Space Station, and other missions and it was used by military flight crews as well.